I remember going on this trip once to California.
While going to California, me and my friend Andrew stopped and saw a garage sale. The person at the desk was selling old stuff though he had this pale face. We went there and asked him how he was doing and ask what he had on sale. He showed us some stuff that we thought was stupid. Then he hold out a VHS tape. What got me was it was a SpongeBob episode. However, it didn't had any logos on it and it said in all caps "SPONGEBOB'S LOST". He gave it to us for free. Being curious and stupid, I accepted it.
We settled in a hotel that gave us VHS for $30.00 per day. Being so curious about the tape, I bought it. We poped the sucker in and the first thing we saw was the intro. The intro was off by a lot. For one, the scene was inverted color and you could faintly see some Russian letters. We got no clue what it said, but let's carry on now. The song was lower in pitch and was a bit depressing. At the end, we saw the title card "SpongeBob's Lost".
The card was red and the text was black. At the lower right, you could see word "Not an actual SpongeBob episode" in very small font. The bubbles came up as usual and it started with SpongeBob carring the big snail food bag (from the "Have you Seen This Snail?" episode.). When he gets to the house, he notices a package. He openes it up and it was the same package he recived in the "Have you Seen This Snail?" episode. By now, my friend and I were questing if this is a bootleg of the episode. After seeing the usual stuff, we see Gary, his snail, running away just like in the episode, but something was weird. He was crying and in the background there was a building that says "Sell your snails here". It wasn't subliminal either. The building was a Skyscraper and the sign has a gigantic font size with fancy designs.
The scene then cuts to SpongeBob playing with the cards and the Paddle Ball that the package contained. While fliping through all of the challenge cards, SpongeBob flips to a card that says "How many times can you ignore Gary?". That made me and Andrew go "What the crap?", but that's only the beginning. The scene then cuts to Gary going to the apotion area, ready to sell himself. One snail snuck up from behind him and stabbed him in the back. Gary died instantly. The scene then cuts to SpongeBob looking for Gary.
All of the usual. By now, me and Andrew were confused. How did this tape get in a garage sale? Keep in mind, this episode does indeed look like an actual SpongeBob episode. I don't know how this happened but it did. After 20 seconds of SpongeBob trying to find Gary at unusal places (This didn't happen in the "Have you Seen This Snail?" episode, just needed to clear that up), the news was on SpongeBob's TV. That weird scottish fish on the news says something about a murder of a snail. The news showed the picture of the snail and then only did we know. SpongeBob in the film started to sobbing after realizing that the snail on the picture was Gary. The scene switched to SpongeBob on the bed. He looked really sad, like he was ready to cry. The quality in this scene was HORRIBLE! The screen looked like as if someone breathed on the screen, fogging it badly. Me and Andrew noticed whispering in the background. Each second, the quality would get clearer but only if you were to look at it non-stop. When the image cleared up, the whispering stopped and SpongeBob says "Today is the day that I go live with Gary." And then there was static.
During the static, 3 images flashed. Me and Andrew rewinded the tape and saw something that was horrible. The first one that flashed was an image of Squidward. Fine enough. Second one was the same thing but looked more realistic. The third one was the same thing but there was some dots and dash that resemble a Morse Code. Me and Andrew translated it and find out that it says "SpongeBob never saw the light of day after this episode was made.". Me and Andrew never knew that this tape evem exsisted. How could this tape be found? Was the seller aware of the fact that this could scar kids for life? The worst is that I even Googled the episode name and got NO result related to the episode. To this day, we are staying away from tapes that are made by an unknown person. Thank you for your time to read this.